Three more powerlifters have tested positive to banned drugs at the Sydney Paralympics, the International Paralympic Committee has revealed.

All three failed out-of-competition tests before the opening ceremony, bringing to nine the number of doping cases in powerlifting.

All have been expelled from the Paralympic Village and banned from all international competition for four years.

The IPC identified the athletes as Uladzimir Buben of Belarus, Jabar T Jabir of Iraq and Olatumbosum Sulola of Nigeria.

It's serious, it's extremely disturbing and we're going to have to think how we're going to react to this terrible problem of drugs in powerlifting

Michael RidingIPC medical director

Buben and Sulola showed accelerated levels of testosterone in their urine samples, while Jabir tested positive for Methyltestosterone.

IPC medical director Michael Riding said a new method of using carbon isotope ratio mass spectrometry had enabled the IPC Medical and Anti-Doping Commission
to differentiate between testosterone produced in the body and that taken as a drug.

"It's serious, it's extremely disturbing and we're going to have to think how we're going to react to this terrible problem of drugs in powerlifting," Riding said.

The six other drug cheats revealed by the IPC president Robert Steadward and expelled from the Games and competition for four years
were Hamed Abdul al-Jandal of Saudi Arabia and Anton Puskov of Bulgaria, who both tested positive to nandrolone, an anabolic
steroid.